


Asterisk

by astrangerenters



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-31
Updated: 2011-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-22 01:04:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangerenters/pseuds/astrangerenters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Los Angeles isn't Tokyo. Nino grows more and more acutely aware of this fact when the car drops him back off at the hotel every night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Asterisk

Los Angeles isn't Tokyo. Nino grows more and more acutely aware of this fact when the car drops him back off at the hotel every night. When the car drops him off in Tokyo, his bed smells like him, and he usually has to sidestep a tangle of cords to climb in. Some would find that annoying, but for Nino, it's his space to use as he wishes. When the car drops him off in Los Angeles, he can smell the stinging chlorine of the pool downstairs, and the maid service always cranks up the air con so he feels like he's walking into a freezer.

There are no cords here, just the stack of DVDs he'd gotten sent from back home. The maid has organized them neatly next to the portable player on the bedside table. The bed is freshly made and doesn't smell like him. The only thing that says “this is Nino's room” are the clothes on his back and in the bags on the floor.

Nino doesn't mind being alone, or so he's always thought. Now that he's in Los Angeles, he's added a small asterisk there in his mind, in the Encyclopedia of Me that he knows from cover to cover. He slips out of his shoes and flops down onto the ugly bedspread, pulling open the drawer next to him. There's a phone book and a Bible, and he opens the Bible up to pull out the envelope he's stashed there.

He yanks it open, feeling the gummy stickiness that had originally sealed it as he takes out the five 1000 yen bills. It's a ritual like brushing his teeth in the hotel room sink or taking his laundry down the street. He lays them out, five thousand yen in five bills. He gives them a once over, shakes his head and smiles. Then he slips the money back in the envelope, jams it into the middle of the book and puts it back in the drawer. Now he can get ready for bed.

Nino doesn't mind being alone. Asterisk. Except when he's filming in America.

–

They've been grilling plate after plate of meat, and it's making him a little woozy. He's going to smell all night, he's sure of it. Even the envelope inside his jacket pocket now is going to smell like yakiniku. Not that it makes the money bad currency. There are worse things that can be done to money than letting it develop an odor, Nino knows. Ripped money, counterfeit money. Money that people use to light their cigars in Hollywood movies. So beef-scented bills aren't the end of the world.

They've never really been apart this long before, but it's just the way things go. In the past few weeks, he's gotten nothing but congratulations and happy smiles. He's heard words like “opportunity” and “honor” so he's well aware of the special position he's in. He just wishes he knew what the hell he was going to do once he got to America. There hasn't been a lot of information about his part or what he'll be doing when he gets there or what he'll be able to do in his down time.

He picks at another piece of meat and shoves it in his mouth. It's pointless to worry. His job is to go where they say and do what they ask. Nino doesn't mind, not that much.

Ohno's been too embarrassed to meet his eyes since he handed the envelope over.

But that's Ohno's fault anyway, Nino reasons. You don't hand someone an envelope of money at the start of their “farewell for now” dinner. You wait until the end of the night when everyone's good and drunk, and it doesn't come across as ridiculous. But no, the five of them had just gotten seated in the room in back and out came the envelope. Nobody had had the heart to give their Leader a smack to the head about it though.

And it was kind of nice in its strangeness.

Aiba's got the farthest to go, and he leaves first. He doesn't hesitate to launch himself across the booth, nearly knocking the wire grill rack off the burner in his haste to give Nino a hug goodbye. Jun and Sho complain about how nobody needs second degree burns, but Nino just throws his arms around Aiba and says thanks for the meal.

Once Aiba's gone, there's less talking. Probably because Sho's had more to eat than to drink. He and Jun both duck out – Sho's close enough to get a hug from, but Jun's already squeezing his way out of the booth and handing over a hastily scrawled list of things that Nino “has to” see and get pictures of while he's gone.

“I need to pee,” Ohno says, and Nino's suddenly left alone in the booth. It amuses him to no end how quickly it's dwindled from five to one. Of course, after he uses the toilet, Ohno will go to the front and make sure the meal's paid for.

By the pleased look on Ohno's face when he returns, Nino figures that Jun and Sho split the check before they left. They can be nice like that from time to time. There's a lot they could talk about now that it's just the two of them. The exchange rate for one, Nino thinks wickedly, knowing that the money in his pocket isn't going to last him long. He appreciates the gesture though. They could talk about air guitar and how his absence will be covered. They could talk about concerts too. Then again, he's got a ten hour flight leaving tomorrow, and he's not really feeling up to talking.

Instead Nino pinches Ohno's cheek in a steady rhythm until the man finishes up his beer. “Come back with me?” he asks when Ohno sets the glass down.

“Yes,” the answer comes decisively.

–

He's not locked in his hotel room every night. There are meals with cast members and one night Ihara-san treats him to a baseball game. Everyone gets along since they're all in a similar boat. Well, Ken-san isn't, not entirely, and Nino appreciates the man's willingness to talk with him, pass on a little wisdom.

He doesn't dislike the production. There's money in everything, Nino discovers when he walks on set every day. There's money in the quality of the lunches and in the pyrotechnics for stunt scenes. Whether they're on location east of the city or later in the shoot when they're back in the studio, it's different from Japan. Not a good different or a bad different. Just different.

Clint's directing style takes some getting used to, but now Nino is comfortable. He has a lot of agency. He gets to make a lot of his own decisions and suggests things and they get the okay. Nino isn't always sure if he gets approval because his ideas are good or because of the language barrier. But it's invigorating, and he puts everything he has into his work. When he's on set, he's glad he came.

But again, there are nights without baseball and meals. The nights where he reads the next day's script pages while his t-shirts and socks tumble in the laundromat dryer in front of him. The nights when he gets back to the room and pulls out the envelope, staring at the five bills and willing them to smell like the booth from the yakiniku place.

On some of these nights, Nino isn't completely exhausted. He has time. He's able to pull a few tissues from the strange box that's built into the bottom of the sink counter and leaves his boxer shorts on the carpet beside the bed. He shuts off the lamp and closes his eyes. He's always been good at switching off, banishing Saigo to a different compartment of his brain. Saigo disappears and the exterior shoots in Bakersfield disappear and even the palm trees he knows are in the courtyard outside vanish.

He focuses entirely on there only being a few weeks left and on how the hard days of shooting have left the skin of his palms a bit rougher. It makes it easier to convince himself that the hand doesn't belong to him. That the fingers aren't so short, but longer with nails that should be clipped more often. It's not something he needs to tell Leader when he gets home. He doesn't have to grab Ohno's ass and say “I missed you, so I got myself off and thought about you.” It's not something Nino thinks is necessary to point out. Because if Ohno does it, he wouldn't tell either.

Nino always starts off slow, working himself little by little to enjoy the increasing sensation as he grows more and more aroused. Ohno may not be decisive in some things, but in handjobs he always holds Nino's cock a certain way. The first time he'd been drunk and the second time he hadn't been, but he'd done it the same way. Nino just mirrors it, gives the thought of Ohno touching him, stroking him more immediacy.

He exhales and remembers the way Ohno's hand faltered as he handed over the envelope that night. How it didn't falter at all once they got back to his apartment. He strokes himself faster as he packs Los Angeles away and thinks of Tokyo.

–

Ohno doesn't complain about the cords in Nino's room or the dirty clothes pile in one corner, the clean clothes in another. Ohno's been around enough times, and he's smart enough on his feet to know how to navigate Nino's floor even after a few beers at the yakiniku place.

Nino knows his room because he lives here, and he's skilled enough to walk backwards, sidestepping a controller as he pulls Ohno along with him. The first thing he deposited after his shoes was his jacket, and he thinks that fell somewhere in the living room on their way to the bedroom. If he'd kept the jacket with him, he'd just make some comment about the envelope and about prostitution, and that'll just embarrass Leader further.

They'd both worn baseball caps to and from the restaurant, and Ohno's already spiky hair is sticking up in a variety of angles when Nino pulls it off of him. It lands on a pile of laundry. Ohno allows Nino to explore each of these angles, tugging at strands and chunks of hair as they move and kiss and maneuver around an old script. Ohno always lets him touch. He doesn't complain like Jun or poke back like Aiba and Sho are inclined to. Ohno allows, and Nino takes everything that's freely given.

He'd be fine with just kissing and touching for a while longer, but as soon as his hips bump against Ohno's, that idea falls by the wayside. There's a “hmm” of pleasure he needs to vocalize when he can feel Ohno's erection through the rough fabric of his jeans. He just lets the sound bubble up from his throat and float between his lips. Ohno responds in kind, laughing gently as he moves his hands down Nino's sides, teasing from his ribs to his waistband.

Ohno's quick and nimble, and his thin artist fingers pull at Nino's belt, unbuckling with expert speed. It makes a slippery kind of whooshing sound as Ohno yanks it through the loops of Nino's denim and deposits it on the floor. Their mouths meet again halfway, but their noses meet first, and Nino laughs. He goes ahead and tilts slightly so they can kiss at a more reasonable angle. There's enough light from the one they turned on in the living room, and he can see the easy, familiar smile ghosting Ohno's lips when they break apart.

There's an almost perfect simplicity in the way Ohno says “Kazu,” just as he lets out a breath and musses Nino's hair. He's playing a soldier after all. As soon as he gets there, he'll be getting his hair cropped pretty close. He wonders what Ohno will do about it when he gets back. But for now, Ohno's focus is on Nino's shirt and on how it should apparently be off of him.

Ohno rarely uses words to declare his intent. Nino prefers it this way. He instead looks for a change in the man's eyes, the slightest darkening there that says they're both still a bit overdressed, or the curl to his lip when he concentrates on unbuttoning his own shirt. They're guys who tend to the lazier side of things, and it takes a while for Nino to stop pinching and grabbing at Ohno's ass through his jeans. Ohno starts to shrug them down his hips on his own, indicating that Nino's wasted enough time.

When the jeans hit the floor, Nino kisses Ohno's mouth and whispers “you better take off your socks this time. It's gross.”

Ohno obeys this request, and Nino gets his own jeans down his narrow hips, tugging his boxers down along with them. He can feel Ohno's cock pressing insistently against his thigh when their lips meet again, and they'll have to lay down eventually, get to the point already. But it's nice to be able to take a little time, get their clothes off. They strip a lot for work and with inhuman speed when it comes to concerts, Nino thinks with a smile. It's not sexy like this is.

When Nino's back hits the sheets, he can smell himself in them, and he knows that when he wakes in the morning before his flight that the sheets will smell like himself, but they'll also smell like Ohno and like sex. Like sex with Ohno, and he kind of adores that smell. Scent isn't his best sense as far as memory goes, but he thinks this one will stay. He'll be gone a month and a half, and he needs to keep Ohno's smell with him.

He can still smell cigarettes from the one they passed back and forth while they waited for a cab to hail. Nino takes it in, locks it away. He lays claim to it when he presses his lips to Ohno's jaw, lazily dragging his tongue from the roughness of a few days' stubble to the soft and smooth earlobe. Ohno laughs because it must tickle or feel strange.

Nino's ready to grab for the drawer beside the bed, but Ohno stops him. “Not yet,” is all Nino hears before Ohno's moving, mouth leaving a faint trail of moisture from his shoulder to his hip bone. He groans when Ohno finds his cock with his fingers and brings it to his lips. It's not the right time for a comment about the envelope of money not being the only going away present. He instead enjoys curling his fingers in Ohno's hair, encouraging the man to take him deeper in his mouth.

His foot twists awkwardly in the bed sheets, but he smiles as Ohno's expert tongue starts at the base of his cock, working up to the head with almost agonizing slowness. He thinks he hears his name again, but he isn't really listening because the sensation between his thighs is building every time he watches his cock disappear again and again between Ohno's lips.

He knows he's going to come. Ohno's movements are growing kind of rough, and it's hard to stay still and not rise off the mattress to fuck Ohno's mouth with abandon. It only takes a few more moments before he gasps out an “Oh-chan” in warning. His whole body tenses and then uncoils, and he just closes his eyes as he feels Ohno's hot mouth around him for a little while longer.

The mattress shifts then, and Ohno coughs lightly. It's been a while since he's volunteered for this sort of thing so readily, and Nino throws a pillow at him.

“It's a mess if I don't,” Ohno grumbles. “You'd get mad.”

“I wouldn't,” he says, fumbling around to try and pull Ohno close, but his limbs aren't working at their usual speed on account of him feeling so damn perfect after Ohno's attention. It seems as though Ohno has sensed this lack of mobility and takes advantage, moving closer and pinning Nino down.

There's a question in Ohno's dark eyes when they're face to face again, and Nino doesn't even know why he bothers asking. He supposes it's just Ohno's tendency toward politeness, and Nino's never really known how to ask Ohno to just take what he wants. Nino takes what he wants all the time.

When Ohno's inside him, though, it's less of a question. He presses intently, mouth brushing greedily against Nino's neck and his face. Nothing makes Nino much happier than feeling Ohno fill him slowly, slip back and then return in time with every upward movement of his own body. He likes the sound of their bodies coming together, of sweaty skin colliding. Every noise Ohno makes in these moments is for Nino and for Nino alone.

“Nino,” Ohno says simply. “Nino,” he hears again, hot breath beside his ear. He'll be on a plane tomorrow in the opposite direction he wants to be, at least at this exact moment in time. A bead of sweat rolls lazily from Ohno's chin to fall on Nino's face, and he doesn't want to tell Ohno he'll miss him or that he needs him. That's not the point of this tonight.

“I want you to come,” he says whenever Ohno's thrusts bring him close enough for Nino to whisper his demands. “Fuck me as hard as you can and come.”

Ohno's fingernails are kind of sharp and dig into his thigh. “Nino...”

He just smiles and rolls his hips up until Ohno's words against his skin become nothing more than murmurs.

–

And he barely grabs the tissue in time, remembering how it had felt to have Ohno within him. Not just seeing the man's satisfied post-coital smile but knowing it, feeling it from the tips of his fingers to the pit of his stomach. He comes with a gasp, and his body's happy for the release after so many tense days of filming.

But in the end, he's in the bed alone, heartbeat slowing again. Well, it can't be helped, he decides, cleaning himself and tossing the tissue in the garbage. They'll disappear while he's gone for filming tomorrow, and when he comes back it'll be like he hadn't done anything at all. Again, it can't be helped.

He gets back into bed, deciding not to give his script pages a look until he's in the car in the morning. Nino gives the drawer at his bedside a friendly pat, thinking about the money within that he sure as hell isn't going to spend while he's here. “Idiot,” he whispers in the dark, laughing.

Nino doesn't mind being alone.

Asterisk.


End file.
